Sweden adopts new fossil-free target, making way for nuclear

https://www.power-technology.com/news/sweden-adopts-new-fossil-free-target-making-way-for-nuclear/

by thunderbong • 3 years ago

31 70 3 years ago

hannob• 3 years ago

Just to be clear what this means and what it does not mean: It means that nuclear power can count towards Sweden's goal towards fossil-free electricity. It does not mean anyone is actually building nuclear plants, or that anyone would want to pay for it. (The article mentions plans from Vattenfall to build SMRs, but well, SMRs don't exist yet, and as far as I could see, the only thing they did yet is perform a feasibility study.)

And then there's this: https://www.power-technology.com/news/orsted-offshore-sweden... Danish company Ørsted wants to build offshore wind farms that could power half of sweden. Ørsted is a fascinating company, it is basically the only former oil and gas company that successfully transitioned towards clean energy.

Between Vattenfall having announced that they might build a type of nuclear plant that has never been built before, and Ørsted wanting to build massive offshore wind farms, I know which one I think is more plausible.

m_eiman2• 3 years ago

The thing that makes everything impossible to predict is that the parties currently in charge have, for political reasons, decided that nuclear power is the only possible solution (ignoring the fact that t takes longer to build than the available time to transition) and that wind and solar are bad options.

fifilura8• 3 years ago

Yes, this message is speaking to the voters, who have been triggered by political parties to expect nuclear as the only solution. ("Build That Wall!")

funklute3• 3 years ago

for political reasons
(ignoring the fact that t takes longer to build than the available time to transition)

My understanding is that nuclear is necessary, unless you believe in very optimistic development timelines for better batteries. Yes, batteries have come a long way, but they are still a long way off from being able to support base load -- is that not correct? It might be faster to build out nuclear, than to develop the necessary improvements in battery tech...

Or am I completely off here?

bigger_inside• 3 years ago

< for political reasons

well, and for technical ones. Since this a tech-heavy board, I expect it to be common knowledge here that you can't operate a grid on wind and solar alone, as you can't control the weather-based output (which, in the case of solar, also has a tendency to maximize when it's -not- most needed). A grid needs a controllable baseline source to have any stability. That can be gas or any other fired plant, it could sometimes be hydro, but it can also be nuclear.

Burning things up is a climate nightmare (though still where about 90% of world power comes from), and also very much more expensive in Europe now than it used to be. Hydro can't be built just anywhere you like, and if the river is also a waterway, also can't be controlled based on energy need (as it is controlled based on traffic demands). So until we get a fusion plant, nuclear is just a predictable decision tree outcome.

pyrale3• 3 years ago

(ignoring the fact that t takes longer to build than the available time to transition)

We're reaching a point where anything we should do will take longer than the time we have to do it. That is a weak claim, given that the same is true for any solution we try to implement, and that late is much better than never.

troupo13• 3 years ago

Danish company Ørsted wants to build offshore wind farms that could power half of sweden.

It will "power half of Sweden" in the ideal conditions of 100% wind always blowing.

nyargh8• 3 years ago

It tends to be a bit windy there, so... yes.

dybber• 3 years ago

Couldn’t it mean that closed down reactors, such as those at Barsebäck, could potentially re-open at some time in the future (after restoration, testing, etc.)?

troupo13• 3 years ago

IIRC you can't just re-open a stopped nuclear reactor. You have to fully rebuild one from scratch.

fifilura8• 3 years ago

Barsebäck was closed down almost 20 years ago. There is not much to re-use there. There may be something to salvave at Ringhals but not worth it more than for sentinental reasons.

It would be like renovating a 50yo veteran car. Maybe fun for someone but not worth the effort. That was also one of the main reasons it was closed down. It was simply reaching its end of life and required a major overhaul that neither government or owners were willing to invest.

pastage2• 3 years ago

Since Barsebäck is one of the only sites you are allowed to built nuclear plants on it is a high on the list of places where a new plant would be built. IF you want it built fast.

kramerger4• 3 years ago

I might be wrong, but I belive that one was already reaching its end of life.

"Restarting Barseback will solve our energy crisis" is as practical as saying "to solve UKs problems, let's bring back Churchill from the dead"

madspindel• 3 years ago

Vattenfall wants to double the lifespan of the existing nuclear plants: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/vattenfall-vill-dubbla-li...

So instead of building 6 new nuclear plants, they will use the existing ones for another 40 years.

Gud• 3 years ago

SMRs don't exist yet

Sweden built their first SMR in the 60s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85gesta_Nuclear_Plant

Sweden intended to build 50+ of these, primarily intended for heating. Sadly, the anti-nuclear mania struck hard in Sweden during the 70s and our awesome nuclear industry never recovered.

legulere2• 3 years ago

This will make Putin happy, as it increases the west's reliance on the Russian nuclear fuel supply chain.

Russia owned 40% of the total uranium conversion infrastructure in the world in 2020, and 46% of the total uranium enrichment capacity.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/23/russia-dominates-global-nucl...

m_eiman2• 3 years ago

Sweden has plenty uranium, all we need to do is mine it and enrich it! (Apparently a trivial task, according to politicians in charge).

defrost6• 3 years ago

9,600 tonnes as "best guess" estimated recoverable according to the 2022 Uranium Red Book .. which is typical for most countries (low (ish)) and it falls on the expensive side per kilo to extract.

Australia has about 2 million tonnes, measured, concentrated in three fairly dense sites with a good chance of more elsewhere.

Kazakhstan has twice the ore (at much better grades) than Russia .. one of the reasons Russia is keen to hang onto the 'stan satellite states.

[Red Book] https://www.oecd-nea.org/jcms/pl_28569/uranium-resources-pro...

ADDENDUM: The May 2022 report indirectly (via a CNN link) mentioned above is

Reducing Russian Involvement in Western Nuclear Power Markets

https://www.energypolicy.columbia.edu/publications/reducing-...

and mentions Russian "dominance" falling from 2018 to 2020 while outling approaches to continue this fall.

It seems hardly surprising that one of the two major Cold War super powers has almost but not quite half of the global processing capacity. It seems a trivial exercise to guess who might also have nearly half the global uranium processing capacity.

legulere2• 3 years ago

Mining isn't the difficulty, but processing and enrichment. Countries like France and the US are continuing to send billions to Russia for that.

paganel• 3 years ago

At some point the Western countries will have to choose between "making Putin or Xi happy" and "burning less coal in the interest of some climate statistics", they can't have it both ways.

Or they could just revamp their industrial base and try to catch China when it comes to solar panel manufacturing, or to brush away countless environmental protection measures and open up a uranium mine close to places like Aspen, Colorado or to some other places in Idaho recently invaded by California refugees, but I don't see any of those two things happening anytime soon.

riffraff• 3 years ago

Aren't they playing catch up on solar panel manufacturing already? I keep reading news of production plants expanding every other day.

And I mean, they don't need to catch up, just have enough of their own production to keep prices low.

troupo13• 3 years ago

What enrages me the most about this is that a few years back Sweden decided to shut down some of its reactors instead of doing maintenance on them because something something electricity prices.

In the past few years electricity prices skyrocketed, there was an electricity shortage, and the government scrambled to mete out compensations for electricity (too little too late)

nyargh8• 3 years ago

There was never an electricy shortage in Sweden, but there was one in Germany which drove up prices in that portion of the grid.

Elbrist was always bullshit, it was just private Swedish electricity producers whinging that they couldn't hit max profits during historically high energy prices in western europe.

troupo13• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465977

kramerger4• 3 years ago

Renewable energy sources already (almost ?) produce enough energy for the whole country. Why should they keep a much more expensive (and maybe a bit dangerous) operation a live??

What you should instead ask yourself is why did the prices skyrocket despite having enough electricity?

troupo13• 3 years ago

Someone else has said it better than me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36465977

_nalply3• 3 years ago

Nuclear can be made to work as long people accept the risks of nuclear accidents and long-term storage, as countries like France show, but on its own it is too expensive.

ffgjgf1• 3 years ago

risks of nuclear acciden

Which are completely insignificant compared direct damage (even if we completely ignore climate change…) from burning coal.

LinAGKar• 3 years ago

Why does that site keep flailing around when you try to to scroll?

Sweden adopts new fossil-free target, making way for nuclear

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